“The aim of the author is to present a clear, concise, and yet as comprehensive a view as possible, of the way of salvation as taught in the Scriptures, and held by the Lutheran Church.
“Christ our Savior and all his apostles preached justification by faith, even as did the prophets of the Old Testament. Justification is the central doctrine of all the Scriptures, the heart and soul of the entire Christian religion.
Joseph Hocking (1860-1937), was a Cornish novelist and United Methodist Free Church minister. Like the American Presbyterian minister Edward Roe, Hocking’s novels combine rich characters with gripping stories. Joseph Hocking published more than 101 books and was greatly respected as a fiction writer.
“Unbelieving and unrighteous men do hate the old Church doctrines. Why? Because these old teachings as to sin, guilt, retribution, the fact and need of a divine-human vicarious atonement the need of sovereign grace, the need of the divinely instituted means and all that these fundamental teachings imply – these teachings are unwelcome to the reason of the natural man.
“Nor will the careful student ever recall Lincoln without recognizing the Gettysburg incident as condensing within itself all that he elsewhere spoke and wrote and accomplished. The meaning of what had transpired on the first three days of July, 1863, with the thousands of lives that had been sacrificed, and the tens of thousands that were enduring untold physical suffering, and the countless homes throughout the land that were darkened because they mourned loved ones, so filled his heart that he compressed the convictions of a lifetime and the anguish of the responsibilities he was then bearing, into a two minutes' address that has become the most highly cherished classic that America has produced.
This book of brief and simple sermons are the result of a lifetime of study, thought and experience by a faithful pastor and teacher.
“The title expresses the chief purpose of the book — to follow ‘In the Redeemer’s Footsteps.